Charlie White

Build a Candy Catapult with LEGO

We just found one more video of one of the projects from that new book, Forbidden LEGO by Ulrik Pilegaard and Mike Dooley, and this one’s the Candy Catapult. The book with all the particulars about how to build this mini trebuchet for sweets will retail for $24.95. [No Starch Press]

UPDATED: iPhone Speech Recognition Demo from VoiceSignal

Click to viewWe’ve heard of VoiceSignal speech recognition for lots of other phones, but now VoiceSignal sent us a video that allegedly shows it working for the first time on the iPhone. According to the guy in the clip, a couple of VoiceSignal engineers designed this app, but all we see it doing so far…

Forbidden LEGO Book Shows You Naughty Projects to Build

Here’s one of five projects from a new book entitled Forbidden LEGO, showing you cool guns ‘n’ shit that you really would have liked to build when you were a kid but, well, mommy might have gotten pissed. And hey, you could’ve put an eye out with that thing. Projects also included in the book…

Smart Scene Carving Resizes Images Without Distortion

Take a look at this smart image resizing algorithm introduced at the SIGGRAPH (Special Interest Group: Graphics) convention. Ariel Shamir of the Efi Arazi School of Computer Science in Herzliya, Israel, aims to make images just as dynamically resizable as text is on a web page by using a technique he calls “scene carving.” We’re…

Tilting Vase Lets You Know When It Needs Water

If you have trouble remembering when to water your plants, you might be interested in this self-tilting vase design concept that gets horizontal when its plant gets thirsty. Once it’s properly hydrated, this pewter container stands up—albeit at a somewhat tilted angle—held up by the weight of the water within. Simple, yet elegant. [Yanko Design]

Laptop Confidential II Finalists Selected

If you’ve been following our Laptop Confidential II video contest, you might have already picked out your favorite film noir mini movie created by our talented Gizmodo readers. Entries are now closed, and we’ve narrowed it down to the top nine submissions. Take a look at top nine videos here, and get ready for the…

Samsung Applies for Self-Cradling Cellphone Patent

Here’s a clever idea that Samsung submitted to the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: a cellphone that holds itself up with a convenient self-contained stand attached to its back. Sure, there are lots of cases that do this sort of thing, but this one folds into the phone in a unique way, using a part…

USB-Powered CD Destroyer Mauls a Disc in Five Seconds

Keep that schoolmarm from perusing your porn with this USB-powered CD destroyer from Brando. In just five seconds, this hungry beast renders any CD or DVD unreadable, grinding in devastating circular scratches and resulting in a strangely beautiful coaster that reminds us of a Spirograph. https://gizmodo.com/carnival-ride-paints-art-peaks-forever-267452 It even includes a leather case for destroying CDs…

Mitsubishi LVP-HC6000 1080p Projector, Cheap and Quiet

Mitsubishi jumped into the circa-$3000 1080p projector game today, rolling out its LVP-HC6000 that adds a couple of tricks to the Epson Powerlite and Panasonic PT-AE100U projectors against which it might compete. Although it has a face only a mother could love, the image it projects on the screen will be probably be a lot…

Zune for $149.99 (+$5 shipping) on Woot!

Netflix Confirms $15.99 Price Was Test For Select Few

Following up on our story from last week about further Netflix price cuts, again reducing rates for its 3-disc at-a-time plan to $15.99, we’ve gotten a confirmation from Netflix Director of Corporate Communications Steve Swasey (pictured in the graphic here) about the nature of that $1-lower price. He says it’s part of a “price test”:…

Google offers full refunds to customers of defunct Google Video Store DRM-infested clips [ars technica]

DeLorean Confirms: New Cars to Roll Out in ’08

Just as we mentioned last month, the DeLorean sports car is indeed going back into production, and you won’t even have to go back in time to get one of those vehicles so memorably featured in the science fiction movie Back to the Future. Our beloved blood brothers at Jalopnik spoke to one of the…

Farty Pants Won’t Make Your Pants Go Toot Toot Toot

Somebody went to a lot of trouble to handmake these Farty Pants, and the story behind this sewing mastery is a mystery. However, we’d much rather look at a visual representation of said emissions than actually experience them in an aural or olfactory sense. Anyway, this unusual garment might make a splendid Halloween costume. [Neatorama]

Sony CyberShot DSC-H3 Adds Megapixels But Has Shorter Zoom

Sony just goosed up the “high zoom” range of its CyberShot line with the DSC-H3, bringing that old DSC-H2 rolled out in February ’06 up a notch with more megapixelidge, a 2.5-inch viewscreen up from 2 inches, and a lower price. This one’s a little slimmer, too, looking a lot less like a lens with…

Nikon Also Preparing D300 for Thursday Launch?

After being teased with that supposedly upcoming Nikon D3 flagship DSLR yesterday, now we’re hearing rumors of a second camera body about to be introduced at the same time, perhaps as soon as Thursday (August 23). Take a look at that admittedly fake picture above, and you’ll see an artist’s conception of the Nikon D300.…

Countertop Beer Cooler and Tap, Just in Time for Labor Day

Slip a five-liter keg of your favorite brew into this Countertop Beer Cooler and Tap, and satisfy that beer jones in style. The thing even has an LED showing adjustable temperature. It has another advantage over some of the other countertop taps we’ve seen, too, because it lets you take it on the road or…

Craziest Guitars Ever Made

If you think you’ve encountered some weird guitars, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Ed Roman, owner of a huge guitar shop and self-proclaimed “Guitar King of Las Vegas,” has put together a new online collection of some of the strangest axes ever to grace this planet. One example is the sexy “BC Rich Bitch” guitar…

Adobe Beefs Up Flash 9 with H.264, AAC and Hardware Support

Adobe’s introduced a powerful new component it’ll be placing into its Flash Video Player 9, adding support for that red-hot H.264 codec, the video compression routine that’s behind Blu-ray, HD DVD and lots of HD goodness all over the videoscape. Adobe’s also heightened the efficiency of Flash audio, adding AAC audio compression. Perhaps the most…

Greatest R/C Aircraft Ever

If you hadn’t seen that guy standing in front of it, you’d have thought this was a full-sized jet taking off. Here’s a montage shot this summer of some of the most state-of-the-art radio-controlled aircraft ever, including realistic-looking fighter jets, Concorde and helicopters. Note the aerobatic stunts where some of the planes even release smoke,…